

WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS 


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BEING 

AN EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE 

OF 

A WORK, 

ENTITLED 

THE SLAVERY OF THE BRITISH WEST-INDIA COLONIES 

DELINEATED, 

AS IT EXISTS IN LAW AND PRACTICE, 

AND 

COMPARED WITH THE SLAVERY 
OF OTHER COUNTRIES, ANCIENT AND MODERN, 

BY 

JAMES STEPHEN, ESQ. 


LONDON: 

Printed by Ellerton and Henderson , Gough Square ,* 

FOR THE 

SOCIETY FOR TIIE MITIGATION AND GRADUAL ABOLITION OF 
SLAVERY THROUGHOUT THE BRITISH DOMINIONS. 

1824 . 





WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS 
REFUTED. 


The public are aware that a work has recently appeared, 
from the pen of Mr. Stephen, entitled, “ The Slavery of 
the British West-India Colonies, delineated as it exists 
both in Law and Practice, and compared with the Slavery 
of other Countries, Antient and Modern.” Of this im¬ 
portant work, only the first volume, being a delineation 
of the state in point of law, has yet appeared. It is 
impossible to appreciate too highly the value of this 
publication, which exposes, with a masterly band, the 
various evils of colonial bondage ; as well as the absurd 
pretensions of the petty oligarchy of Whites w ho compose 
the colonial assemblies, to a separate and independent 
right of legislation, in all matters affecting the Negro 
population of our colonies. The following is an extract 
from the preface to Mr. Stephen’s work, on this and some 
kindred subjects, which will not fail to be read with lively 
interest by all the enemies of Slavery ; and first, as to the 
propriety of publicly discussing the subject.— 


" But have not public discussions in England on these 
subjects, it may be asked, produced insurrections in the West 
Indies ? 

“ Before I answer the question, let us assume that such is 
the fact, and examine calmly the justice of those consequences 
for which its assertors contend. Are seven hundred thousand 
human beings, subjects of Great Britain, with their future 
offspring, to be held for ever in such a dreadful and destructive 
state as this work describes, because their deliverance from it 
may not be unattended with ^ome portion of evil ? Then let the 







WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 3 

physician and the surgeon abjure their professions; for what 
cure was ever effected of an inveterate and dangerous malady, 
without some degree of temporary evil to the patient? 

“ That without public discussion in this country. Slavery will 
never be abolished, or effectually alleviated, no fair man who 
attends to the admitted facts of the case will dispute. The 
colonists themselves, for the most part, virtually admit it. They 
boast indeed of having already meliorated greatly the condition 
of their Slaves, by laws which the reader of the following work 
will learn how to appreciate: but whatever be the value of their 
meliorating acts, to discussions in this country they are con¬ 
fessedly to be ascribed; or at least to recommendations from 
Parliament and the Crown, which, without such discussions, 
would not have been obtained. 

“ The Assemblies have not even affected in general to repre¬ 
sent their boasted reforms as spontaneous, or to conceal that 
they were made in compliance with the sense of Parliament, and 
of the Executive Government: some of the acts themselves 
recite that such were the motives of their authors. 

“ Let me add, that if these ostensible improvements were 
really carried into practice, or had a tenth part of the value 
which the colonial apologists attribute to them, they would be 
cheaply purchased at the expense of greater temporary evils by 
far than the insurrections at Demerara and Barbadoes. 

“ Does any man seriously expect, that if public discussion 
in this country were now to be abandoned, those old laws would 
be made effectual, and improvements of far greater importance 
introduced by the free choice of colonial legislators? If so, let 
him attend to the lessons of experience.” 

“ Others may entertain or profess what hopes they please. 
They may suppose, perhaps, that the Assemblies are not in 
earnest in their loud and vehement indignation against the pro¬ 
posed measures and their authors ; but, for my part, though I 
should forget the testimony of experience, I know too well the 
composition and character of those bodies ever to expect from 
them any thing better than such temporising expedients, to 
avert the interposition of Parliament, as have hitherto been 
successfully employed. Indeed, as to the most important re¬ 
formations of the fatal existing system, and without which 
depopulation or a renewed Slave Trade must be the no-distant 
lot of our sugar colonies, I have always held that the Assem- 

a 2 


4 


WEST-1NDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 

blies, if they had the will, have not the power to make them. I 
am sure, at least, that such is the case in all our old islands ; 
except, perhaps, Jamaica ; and I do not know or believe that it 
is otherwise even there *. 


• “ That the Assemblies possess not the power of effectual reformation, is a truth 
which I do not expect my readers in general will he prepared fully to understand and 
admit, till I shall have laid before them such statistical information as properly belongs 
to the second division of this work. But I will here subjoin a few remarks, rather 
serving to shew my meaning in the proposition, than to prove its truth. 

“ The Assemblies, in the smaller islands at least, are generally composed of men 
dependent for their subsistence on the system proposed to he reformed ; and to whose 
hopes in life the immediate correction of it would be fatal. They are, besides, too 
intimately connected with, and dependent on, the small free communities they repre¬ 
sent, to oppose themselves in earnest to their general voice ; or to venture on measures 
so offensive to theirWhite brethren, as all effectuul laws would be, the objects of which 
avowedly were to raise the Negioes in the social scale, and, by preparing a future 
abolition of Slavery itself, to reduce the proud and gainful ascendency of the privileged 
class. Meliorating acts, incapable of being enforced, and known to be framed for the 
sole purpose of averting parliamentary interference, are easily borne with; but the man 
who, in one of those petty assemblies, should attempt to realize the benevolent ideas 
and plans of the British Government, would be a hardy philanthropist indeed. If he 
did not escape, like the late Bnrbadocs Missionary, by flight, he would probably have 
to feed the flames of his own mansion kindled by a popular torch. 

“ The late destruction of the Methodist chapel in Barbadocs, is too plain an illus¬ 
tration of my meaning, to be here passed unnoticed. It was an outrage perpetrated 
openly in the face of the sun ; and, as has been stated without contradiction, continued 
during two successive days; und this in the chief town, the seat of the local govern¬ 
ment, which durst not interpose. I say durst not, because it is due to the Governor to 
presume, that he would have upheld the authority of the laws, and the respect due to 
himself, as his Majesty’s representative, bat for,the fear of greater mischief. He had 
no doubt, as usual, a military force within call; but the petits Blancs, or White mobility, 
of Bridgetown, were too formidable to be opposed. They have also, it seems, since 
set the laws and the government at defiance. A Black mob which sets fire to a canc- 
piece, is punished, wc may observe, in that country, with the slaughter of hundreds of 
the rioters ill the field, and multitudes afterwards on the gibbet; but a White mob may 
pull down buildings in the capital town, without resistance, and brave the government 
afterwards, with perfect impunity and triumph. 

" The bold innovator whom l have imagined, would have also to confront dangers, 
nr rather to submit to certain consequences, not less deterring, though of a different 
kind, I mean such as would affect his own private property, or that of his employers, 
and the security or satisfaction of their creditors. 

Here I build on ground not yet fully rescued from controversy and popular mis¬ 
take. 1 ask no credit, therefore, I repeat, for these views at present, but wish only that 
they should be understood. 

IV hat I mean is, that the members of these insular assemblies, being on an avc- 
rage, I think, about twenty in number, and in some islands considerably less, arc for 
the most part either planters deeply encumbered with debt, or managers and other 
dependents of such planters. Now if Slavery cannot be lightened, and progressively 
abolished, without present sacrifices such as they or their medy employers cannot 



WEST-IN DIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 5 

“ But this is more than I am under any necessity of proving. 
It is enough for mj purpose that the will at least is wanting ; 
and that the general disinclination of the Assemblies to the work 
in question cannot be overcome without a continuance of those 
discussions in the mother country which they affect to depre¬ 
cate ; or without parliamentary legislation, which is the only 
effect of such discussions that they really fear, and sincerely 
desire to avert. 

“ Now, if this cruel and fatal system of Slavery cannot be 
effectually mitigated or terminated without public discussions 
on the subject, I repeat, and am prepared to maintain, that 
these necessary means not only may warrantably be used, but 
cannot innocently be abstained from, by those who view the 
system in its true nature and effects; even though it should be 
demonstrated that insurrections have been occasioned by, and 
are likely again to ensue from, them. If the waste of human 
life alone were taken into account, this conclusion would still 
be undeniably just; for the numbers that perish annually from 
the effects of that destructive system are greater than those 
which have been destroyed by insurrections and their conse¬ 
quences in the course of fifty years. 

“ In a right view, such melancholy events as those of De- 
merara and Barbadoes strengthen, instead of opposing, the 
duty of reformation ; for how dreadful is that system which we 


afford to make; if, for instance, labour must be lessened, and sustenance increased 
(without which the fatal decrease of plantation Slaves by mortality cannot be pre¬ 
vented), at the? price of reducing the sugar crops, and augmenting the current expenses 
on estates that barely now enable their owners to keep down the interest of the incum¬ 
brances; upon what principle can it be expected that he or his manager should propose 
or vote for laws, by which such painful sacrifices would be imposed ? Not upon a 
feeling of humanity, certainly; for that would have led to their voluntary adoption: — 
not on a provident regard to the future interests of the estate; for it must soon cease 
to be his. 

“ The case of the constituents, too, is not in general different. To a large proportion 
of the planters in our old sugar colonies, present diminution of net proceeds would 
infallibly induce a speedy foreclosure or sale. 

" These views, doubtless, shew the difficulty of effectual reform to be extremely 
great. It is a truth that I have never desired to conceal or extenuate. To Parliament 
itself, the work would be difficult to reconcile the relief or preservation of the Slaves 
with the present interest of their owners, and ilie rights of their mortgagees; but to the 
Assemblies it would be quite impossible. In that most essential point of reform, the 
enforcing an adequate allowance of food from the Planters to their Slaves, some of 
them have virtually, if not expressly, avowed it.”—(See pp. 89— IOC, and Appendix 
No. III.) 



6 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


can alone maintain by an enormous effusion of human blood, 
and in a cause which we feel to be in its origin unjust, when¬ 
ever the slightest movement of resistance or insubordination 
occurs ! If it was necessary to kill on the spot, on the late oc¬ 
casion, two hundred human beings, and to consign great num¬ 
bers besides to the public executioner; to what but the state of 
Negro Slavery can that harsh necessity be ascribed ? 

“ Let it be supposed, for the argument’s sake, that all the 
absurd calumnies which have been propagated as to the origin 
of the commotion are true. The more, if so, were the poor 
ignorant victims to he pitied. Their object was only to claim 
that removal or alleviation of a galling yoke which they had 
been taught, it is alleged, to believe the sovereign power had 
ordained for them. Still, what had they done ? Not shed a 
drop of blood, nor burnt a house or a cane-piece. The dread¬ 
ful exigencies of the system, therefore, can alone be alleged in 
excuse of the extensive military massacre, and subsecpient exe¬ 
cutions. A similar tumult in this country would probably not 
have cost the rioters a single life. 

44 The colonial partisans seem to wish us to believe, not only 
that discussious in this country f and the instigations of Mission¬ 
aries, have been the causes of these events, but that these are 
the only causes from which insurrections are ever to be appre¬ 
hended. But what security will they give us that perseverance 
in the existing system will be unattended with similar disasters 
in future, as they have so often been at former periods ? Be¬ 
fore the quiet of a silently destructive oppression was disturbed 
by any such discussions, or paganism and barbarism on the 
plantations were invaded by one charitable ray of Christian 
light, insurrections were far more frequent than they have since 
been; and Guiana, too, was always their favourite region. 
Plots and conspiracies, real or imaginary, were familiar occur¬ 
rences in almost every island; and often have our brave soldiers 
been employed in the odious and pestilent service of suppress¬ 
ing, not a mere plantation broil, or local riot finished in an 
hour, but wide-spread aud long-coutinued insurrections. He 
must be a very young reader who does not recollect such cases 
in Grenada and Dominica, Saint Vincents and Jamaica. As 
to mutinies on particular estates, and imputed conspiracies for 
which Slaves have been convicted and executed as rebels, those 
who have long resided iu the West Indies well know the fre- 


tVEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 7 

quency of such occurrences ; but they used to be, for the most 
part, unheard of in Europe. The times were, when there were 
no motives for treating these cases with measures alarming in 
their character, and expensive in their consequences, such as 
calling out the militia, for any ultra violence or severity against 
the offenders ; for giving exaggerated accounts of such ordinary 
fruits of Slavery; or for trumpeting them for months together 
in the ears of the British public. 

“ The chief novelty in the cases of Barbadoes and Deme- 
rara, supposing the alleged causes to have been the true ones, 
is this,—that the British arms have been more justifiably em¬ 
ployed in shedding the blood of our Black fellow-subjects than 
formerly ; because the tendency and the object has been, not to 
perpetuate the full weight of an unjust and hopeless bondage, 
but to preserve the means of its peaceful and progressive termi¬ 
nation. 

“ Having premised these remarks, I proceed to give the 
question of fact before proposed a direct and candid answer. 

“ I will not affirm that public discussions in this country have, 
in no sense, produced the late insurrections in the West Indies ; 
because it may be true, though attested only on very suspicious 
evidence, that mistakes as to the true intentions or actual mea¬ 
sures of Parliament, influenced the insurgents, both at Barba¬ 
does and Demerara; and certainly it was from public discus¬ 
sions here that the interpositions of Parliament and of the 
Crown, the alleged subjects of misconception by the Negroes 
on those occasions, arose. The register plan would not have 
been recommended to the Colonies in the one instance, nor the 
disuse of the driving whip, &c. in the other, if the merits of 
those measures had not first been freely discussed both in and 
out of Parliament; and if those offensive measures had never 
been recommended by the mother country, the White Colonists 
would not have had any motive for raising that local tempest, 
and propagating those violent misrepresentations and clamours 
throughout the West Indies, by which alone, if in any way, the 
Blacks were deceived. They would not have been rash enough 
to proclaim in the ears of their Slaves that a general emancipa¬ 
tion was intended for them by Parliament, or by their friends 
in Europe, if their aversion to the measures really proposed 
had not been a feeling too powerful to be subdued or regulated 
by the ordinary suggestions of prudence. The discussions in 


8 


WEST-INDJAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


question, therefore, though not the proximate or direct cause 
of the insurrections, may, in one sense, be said to have pro¬ 
duced them, by having given rise to those public measures in 
this country which furnished the subjects of clamour and mis¬ 
representation on the part of the masters, and, through their 
imprudence, gave occasion, perhaps, to a fatal misconception 
by the Slaves. 

“ In this view, these discussions stood nearly in the same 
causal relation to the mischief, that the preaching and writing 
of the pious fathers of our church did to the tires of Mary’s 
age in Smithfield. But if Latimer and Ridley had been taxed 
by their persecutors with this fatal consequence, we may con¬ 
ceive what would have been their reply. ‘ The primary cause 
‘ of all,’ they might have said, ‘ was your own corruptions in 

* doctrine and practice, which our public discussions were the 

* only possible means of reforming; and now, these barbarous 
4 executions, which you strangely impute to us, are the effects 
4 of your own bigoted and relentless adherence to those abuses, 

4 long after their reformation has been voted by Parliament, and 
4 called for by the general sense of the English people. They 
4 are the direct and immediate fruits of your furious rage against 
4 the reformers, and of the fatal delusions practised by you on 
4 the minds of those who possess the civil power,—the slaves of 
4 superstition, whom you despotically govern; and whom you 
4 have taught to misconceive our true principles, aud falsely to 
4 impute to us mischievous designs.’ 

44 Whether these intrepid friends of spiritual freedom would 
have so answered or not, of one thing we are sure,—they would 
not have been deterred by such reproaches from persisting in 
their appeals to the understandings aud the consciences of their 
countrymen ; or consented to avert from themselves or others, 
further evils of the same terrible nature, by un abandonment of 
their sacred cause. 

44 Some of my readers, perhaps, may still conceive, that 
allowing public discussion to be on these views justifiable, it has 
ceased, under existing circumstances, to be clearly necessary 
without the walls of Parliament; because a powerful Govern¬ 
ment, in concurrence with the voice of the Commons, is pledged 
for an effectual reformation. 

44 I admit that the important and valuable pledge was given ; 
and that we are now warranted by it to expect that Parliament 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 9 

vvill.pt length take into its own hands the work which the subor¬ 
dinate legislatures neither will nor can perform. 

“ The case which the Right Honourable Secretary of State, 
who moved the resolutions, described and deprecated, has arisen. 
Instead o i‘ afull and fair co-operation ’ there is * resistance* 
and a resistance which * partakes not of reason , but of con¬ 
tumacy V 

“ It may be hoped, therefore, that his Majesty’s Government 
will act in consequence, as Mr. Canning intimated under the 
terms of * coming down to' Parliament for counsel * But I 
cannot be sure that such will be their conduct: and if I were, 
the publication of this work would nevertheless appear to me 
an indispensable duty ; because a most obstinate opposition is 
preparing on the part of the Colonies ; and because I am satis¬ 
fied, and certainly know, that the members of the legislature 
in general, and even ministers themselves, will, in the discus¬ 
sions that must ensue, stand in need of much information, such 
as is here offered to them, as to the true nature and character 
of the state in regard to which they will be called upon to legis¬ 
late. In that case, no difference will be found between the 
practical views of Government and my own: and my labours 
will only have tended to the promotion of our common objects 
in the best and safest way; for though it has been artfully and 
most assiduously represented, that I and my fellow-labourers in 
the cause of the Slaves were discontented with the measures 
approved by the Right Honourable Secretary of State, and that 
we aim at rash and precipitate changes, beyond those to which, 
specifically, he has given the high sanction of his opinion as 
proper for immediate adoption in the Colonies, that representa¬ 
tion, like most other statements from the same quarter, is utterly 
false. 

“ We, were dissatisfied, indeed, with a new reference to the 
Assemblies; and I challenge any fair man who attends to the 
facts I have generally adverted to here, and proved in the fol¬ 
lowing work, to deny that we had abundant reason to be so. 
We foresaw that it would prove a new slogan, or war-cry in 
the West Indies ; which would certainly produce new clamours, 
and perhaps new mischief, but lead to no one useful result. We 
regarded it as an unjustifiable delegation of duties which Par- 

* “ Speech of Mr. Canning, in the debate of May 15th.” 

B 




10 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


liament itself was bound to perform. We thought, and still 
think, that, after experiments of thirty years’ duration, the dig¬ 
nity as well as justice of the supreme Legislature was compro¬ 
mised hy such a course ; and that the most insulting, as well as 
absurd of all unconstitutional pretensions, that of an exclusive 
right of internal legislation in the Assemblies, was countenanced 
at least, if not virtually admitted. That pretension, indeed, 
is one which Mr. Canning himself has repeatedly protested 
against; and ceitainly no British statesman or lawyer, or any 
rational man who has considered the subject, will venture, on 
this side of the Atlantic, to defend it. It is a pretension 
which the potent North-American Colonies, now the United 
States, never advanced, till they laid claim to independence 
itself; and which this country, in her most earnest efforts for 
a necessary conciliation with them, was so far from admitting, 
that she expressly reserved her opposite rights, even in that very 
statute in which she abandoned the whole original ground of 
quarrel,—the practice of internal taxation ; a statute to which, 
notwithstanding, the sugar colonies have the confidence to ap¬ 
peal in support of this preposterous claim'. 

" To admit such a pretension would be to lay down the im¬ 
perial sceptre at the foot of every petty assembly. It would be 
to place this great empire at best in the state of an inferior or 
vassal ally, such as Napoleon once made of the feeble powers 
around him; for it is noticed by the most eminent writers on 
public law, as a criterion of such an inferiority, and its most 
humiliating incident, that the inferior must assist with his arms 
in every quarrel in which the superior thinks fit to engage, with¬ 
out any power to put a negative upon unjust aggression, or to 
examine the merits of the case. He is to be dragged through 
the mire of iniquity and blood, whenever his injurious confe¬ 
derate proceeds, and commands him to follow. 

“ Such precisely, in protecting the Colonial Whites against 
the Slaves, would be the odious and degrading duties of this 
great country, if she subscribed to these arrogant claims. They 
deny us the right of controlling that interior oppression, resist¬ 
ance to which we are nevertheless bound to repress even by the 
most costly and sanguinary means. 

“ True, these pretensions have not been expressly admitted 
by our statesmen; and are in point of theory denied. But 
what has been the practice l Just the same as if they had been 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 11 

formally allowed. I speak not of former times, nor even of 
our own days prior to the abolition controversy ; but in every 
thing since that period, which has had relation to Slavery, Par¬ 
liament has been bearded with bold denials of its legislative 
power ; and has always tamely given way, even in cases in which 
it could not he contended that the separate local legislatures 
could give full and convenient effect to the measures in ques¬ 
tion ; measures proposed or approved of by his Majesty’s Go¬ 
vernment, and by Parliament itself. 

“ Such emphatically was the case of the bill for the Registra¬ 
tion of Slaves. 

“ I have elsewhere shewn, and by arguments to whi6h no 
answer, I believe, has ever been given or attempted, that a Slave 
Registry, in order to be efficacious, must be established by 
parliamentary authority; because that alone can prescribe rules, 
and ordain sanctions and remedies, operative alike in every 
colony, governing their mutual maritime intercourse, and ca¬ 
pable of being enforced on the high seas, and in courts of uni¬ 
versal jurisdiction. The measure also being a necessary supple¬ 
ment to the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and resting on the 
same high principles with that glorious reformation, was in its 
nature one for which the character of Parliament, and the 
honour of the British people, were responsible ; and which we 
were therefore bound to make effectual. Yet colonial clamours 
and alarms, precisely of the same kind that are now again em¬ 
ployed, prevailed over every argument, whether drawn from 
national honour, from consistency, reason, or justice; and this 
rear-guard of the abolition was sent to be formed and organiz¬ 
ed by the Assemblies themselves ; with earnest recommenda¬ 
tions, I admit, in its favour from Parliament, and from the 
Crown; but addressed to the same Assemblies which had for 
twenty years effectually resisted the Abolition, and some of 
whom had protested against it to the last, even after it had 
passed into a law. 

“ The effect was such as might easily have been foreseen, 
and as the friends of the measure predicted. The plan was 
partially and ostensibly adopted in twenty different forms; but 
all so grossly defective, as to make it worse than useless. A 
measure which, to be effectual in any of our islands, must be 
made so in all, was no where adopted without fatal mutilations 
and defects. These evasions were publicly exposed. The pro- 


12 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


moters and authors of the measure disclaimed those impotent 
and impracticable substitutes for it; and demonstrated that they 
were all calculated, not only to elude its salutary effects, but to 
bring the plan itself into disrepute *. 

44 Meantime all objections to the principle of the measure 
had been progressively abandoned by the Assemblies themselves. 
Several of them even had takeu credit for it, as an important 
improvement in their Slave Laws, aud as affording undeniable 
security against clandestine Slave-trade. The Government also 
had, in its diplomatic negociations relative to that trade with 
foreign powers, relied upon the system of Slave Registration as 
an essential guard of the Abolition, and solicited its adoption as 
such in the colonies of France ; a request with which that power 
had intimated a disposition to comply. 

44 Can a case be imagined, theu, in which it could be more 
incumbent on Parliament, upon every principle which should 

* “ I ought not here to foibear quoting the following passages from the Review of 
these Colonial Register Acts, published by the Aftican Institution, in its Report of 
February 22d, 1820. 

44 ‘ But whatever the motives maj have been, the conduct of the Assemblies has at 

* least well justified lliuse predictions in yom former Report on this subject, of w hich 
4 they so strongly complained. You said, * The uork, if Ljt lo them , certainly will 
4 not he done.' You added, 1 Should the fear of the mother country taking the work 
4 into her handt now produce a leu openly contumacious spirit than before , the fruits 
4 will be no better than ostensible and impotent laws. Registries would be established , 

* perhaps; but on such a defective plan , and with such inadequate legal sanctions , that 

* the desired effect would be lost, and the system itself would be brought into discralii ; 

* nay, would be made, pcihaps, a cover for those very frauds which it was designed to 
4 prevent' 

444 Be* the impartial—nay, let those whose prepossessions in this controversy were 
4 most strongly ou the side of the colonies—fairly compare this anticipation with the 
‘ event, as exhibited in the present Report; and then ask themselves whether your 
4 application to Parliament was needless, whether the clamours to which it gave rise 
4 were just, and to whose charge some mischievous effects of those clamours may fairly 
4 be laid/ 

" 4 Une only of the predictions, here quoted, yet remains to be verified : 1 the system 
4 itself * is not yet 4 brought into discredit/ 

44 4 To prevent this ultimate and fatal consequence, your Committee wopld earnestly 
4 recommend, that this Review of the Colonial Register Acts may, without delay, be 
4 submitted to rile British public. Your silence might be construed into an acquics- 
4 cence in those mutilations and perversions of your plan, which must certainly frustrate 
4 all its objects, and produce in its operation nothing but inconvenience and mischief. 

44 4 Your Committee does not hesitate to add, as its clear opinion, that, unless effectual 
4 measures shall now be taken by Parliament to establish a Slave Registration throughout 
‘ the British West-Indies, on a uniform plan, and with the only adequate executory 
4 provisions, the plan had better be altogether abandoned/” 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 13 

govern the legislature of a great nation, to maintain firmly its 
authority, than this? Yet the Assemblies have been allowed to 
trifle on without control, till at length their true object is ac¬ 
complished ; and the last prediction noticed in the Report I have 
here cited, is more than verified. They have not only * brought 
the system itself into discredit ,’ but in our largest island the 
mutilators of it have the effrontery now to ascribe to its authors, 
the effects of their own insidious work. A bill, it appears, was 
read a first time, and ordered to be read a second time, without 
opposition, in the Assembly of Jamaica, in November last, for 
repealing its Register Act, on the ground of its being * a 
troublesome , expensive , and obnoxious measure , and utterly 
useless ; a character of it, which the reader, who will not 
take their word and mine for it, may find lo have been abun¬ 
dantly demonstrated, four year ago, in the Report to which I 
have referred # . 

“ In the same newspaper from which I derive this intelli¬ 
gence, other articles extracted from the Jamaica Gazettes, hold 
out the decent intimation that the Assembly will give effect to 
its repealing act, if disallowed by the Crown, by withholding 
the supplies necessary for the support of the Registry. They 
affect to suppose that the promoters of the plan, which they 
have eluded and ruined, will be outraged at its formal abandon¬ 
ment ; and do me the honour to name me among them, certain¬ 
ly by no complimentary epithets, but in very good company,— 
that of Messrs. Wilberforce, Buxton, and Macaulay, and the 
noble Earl at the head of the Colonial Department himself. Of 
his lordship’s sentiments on the subject I am wholly uninformed ; 
but can assure them, on my own behalf and that of the three 
other gentlemen whom they have named, that our only objec¬ 
tion to the repeal will be their having delayed it so long; and 
that we heartily wish all the other Colonial Register Acts had 
been repealed long ago. Our reasons will be best expressed in 
the language of the Report which I have cited ; ‘ Not only will 
4 the system itself, by those futile enactments, be brought into 
‘ discredit, but they will be made, perhaps, a cover for those 

* very frauds which it was designed to prevent. Unless, there- 

* fore, effectual measures shall now be taken by Parliament, to 
‘ establish a Slave Registration throughout the British West- 

* “ Sec pp. 11—13, 41, 45 —75,86—88, 108—110, &c.” 


WEST-INDI AN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


14 

* Indies, on a uniform plan, and with the only adequate 
‘ executory provisions, the plan had better be altogether aban- 
‘ doned.’ 

“ Such was the avowed sense of the African Institution four 
years ago ; and such is now my confirmed and most deliberate 
judgment. 

“ But I will go further, and with equal sincerity. If Par¬ 
liament is not now at length prepared to take the work of alle¬ 
viating, and progressively abolishing Slavery, into its own 
hands, I heartily wish it would give a direct negative to the pe¬ 
titions ; and not again at once mock the hopes of humanity, 
compromise its own dignity and authority, and excite inter¬ 
minable controversy and mischief, by new references to the 
Assemblies. 

“ Among other reasons for the interposition of Parliament, 
no other power can give equal and fair effect to measures on 
the necessity or expediency of which the late resolutions were 
founded. The fatal subdivisions of legislative jurisdiction in 
the British West-Indies, not less than the general spirit of the 
legislators, and the local prejudices by which they are fettered, 
demands the aid of the sole authority that can correct the system 
at large, in a general and equable way. 

“ If it had been right to commit the destiny of the unfortu¬ 
nate Slaves to the civil as well as domestic government of their 
masters, and to assign to them no other lawgivers but those 
who are themselves accomplices in every general abuse which it 
is the duty of a legislature to controui, care at least should have 
been taken to constitute colonial assemblies of as much dignity 
and liberality of character as our West-Indian possessions, 
having duo regard to their local situation, might afford; and 
therefore, when a great number of small islands, nearly adjacent 
to, or at no great distance from, each other, were to be placed 
under what has been most preposterously called a British Con¬ 
stitution, the maxim should have been to unite aud consolidate, 
instead of subdividing, their legislative jurisdictions. 

“ But the system has fatally been, not only to give to every 
newly acquired islaud, however insignificant in its dimensions 
and population, a separate governor, and council, aud repre¬ 
sentative assembly ; but to divide jurisdictions in the old colo¬ 
nics that were formerly united. The Leeward Charibee Islands, 
comprising Antigua, Saint Christopher, Montserrat, Nevis, 


WEST-INDI AN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 15 

and Tortola, with their respective small dependencies, which 
were once represented in one general assembly, and had the 
same governor and council, have now no less than five local 
legislatures; though, in respect of most of them, it would be 
wronging many country parishes of England to say that their 
vestries were not more fit to be intrusted with full powers of 
municipal legislation within their respective precincts. The con¬ 
sequences have been a difficulty, needlessly enhanced, of finding 
liberal and independent members of these legislative bodies; 
and also their stricter subserviency to the prejudices and particu¬ 
lar interests of the petty communities over which they preside. 

“ Nothing worse than this system could possibly have been 
contrived to make the condition of the servile class in the British 
West-Indies completely hopeless, unless it were that abdication 
of the controlling power of Parliament on which the Assemblies 
have now the confidence to insist.” 

“ Having thus far stated the reasons which justify my dissent, 
and that of the friends of colonial reformation in general, from 
the resolutions of May last, in respect of the fruitless reference 
to the colonial assemblies, a dissent which experience has too 
well confirmed, let me express my earnest hope that there will 
be at length an end of such experiments. 

“ If it is fit that such a state as is delineated in the following 
work should remain unmitigated, till the hapless subjects of it 
perish in their chains, let the House of Commons at once 
rescind its resolutions, and leave the poor victims to their fate. 
But if any thing, however small, is to be done for their relief, I 
trust that Parliament will cease impotently and mischievously 
to recommend , and begin at length to ordain. 

“ What sound objection can now be raised to such effectual 
interposition ? 

“ Is it that the colonies are clamorous and violent in their 
protests against it, and that mischief may ensue ? The same 
objections might have been opposed, and indeed long were with 
fatal success opposed, to the Abolition of the Slave Trade. 
That measure, also, was treated, by Jamaica and almost every 
other colony, as ‘ a direct invasion of their constitutional rights, 
and as a tyrannical oppression, to which they would never 
submit.’ In that case, also, numerous resolutions of the most 
audacious kind, bordering on sedition and rebellion, were 
framed at public meetings, and by the Assemblies themselves. 


16 WEST-INDI AN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 

The measure which the very same men now affect to applaud, 
and hold inviolable, was arraigned and deprecated, in terms 
of indignation the most intense that language could convey. 
Mr. Wilberforce, and its other promoters, were traduced and 
vilified by libels not less acrimonious than those with which the 
periodioal press has teemed for months past against the same 
public characters. But Parliament at length did its duty; and 
what was the result? An immediate cessation of all those idle 
clamours and alarms, and all that factitious indignation. A 
growling epilogue from tho Jamaica Assembly excepted, scarce 
a further murmur was heard; and, ere long, the reigning tone 
in the West Indies was applause of the abolition, and repro¬ 
bation of the trade which they had so zealously and pertina¬ 
ciously upheld. They have since not only professed to adopt 
those very principles which they had before railed against as 
fanatical and pestilent errors, but have affected to regard every 
suspicion of the reality and universality of their conversion as a 
grievous imputation and affront. 

41 Let Parliament now take the same direct aud manly course, 
and we shull soon find a similar event. We shall ouly have to 
defend ourselves against the charge of having deferred the 
salutary work too long. These consistent colonists have had 
the modesty to accuse us of late years, for so long maintaining 
the Slave Trade. They have alleged that it was a British, not 
a Colonial, iniquity; and we may hereafter expect to hear from 
them, that tho protraction of Slavery also was the crime solely 
of the parent state. 

44 Of the indecent meuaces which Jamaica aud other islands 
have again resorted to, it w ould be difficult to speak with temper, 
if they were not too ridiculous to excite any grave emotions. 

44 They will renouuce their allegiance!!! If so, we shall 
have to subdue them by a uew and cheap mode of warfare; 
not by sending out troops, but withdrawing them. The most 
terrible of all hostile operations, would be the lcaviug them to 
themselves. They threaten us with a saving, even in the 
present pacific times, of at least a million per annum, and the 
lives of multitudes of brave soldiers and seamen, who are con¬ 
tinually perishing in their hospitals, and in the ships of war 
employed in their defence. 

44 They will assert their independence of us !!! Then I trust 
they will allow us also to become independent of them ; and a 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REPUTED. 17 

rich boon it would be. The people of England would be 
nished by saving two millions a year which we now pay in the 
price of sugar, through their monopoly of our markets, after 
every pretence of reciprocity has ceased. The manufacturers 
and merchants of England would be further punished, by 
reaping a copious harvest in every foreign region in which 
sugar is produced. They would no longer have to abandon to 
rivals on the European continent, or in the United States, the 
copious supply of Cuba, and in a great measure of Brazil. By 
taking returns in sugar, w T e should nearly monopolize the import 
trade of both. I am far from recommending, indeed, our so 
encouraging the agriculture of countries which still adhere to 
the Slave Trade ; but it is probable that the boon of supplying 
the British market might effectually second our instances with 
them for the renunciation of that commerce. We might also 
regain, and engross, the very valuable commerce of Hayti, 
which, in complaisance to Jamaica, we have foolishly renounced. 
Above all, we should be enabled to cultivate in the East the 
richest field that ever was opened to a manufacturing and 
commercial people; to reap the best fruits of our vast Indian 
empire, and greatly to strengthen its foundations. The looms 
of England would be in full requisition to clothe the natives of 
Hindostan, and their willing agricultural industry would give us 
full freights for our shipping, as well as copious supplies for 
our consumption of sugar, in return. We might soon so far 
reduce the commodity in price, as not only to extend its con¬ 
sumption here, to the great increase of our revenue, but to 
undersell every foreign rival that raises it by Slave labour, in 
all the markets of the continent. We might thus ultimately 
put an end to Slavery in the New World, through the compe¬ 
tition of free labour, aided by British enterprise, in the Old. 
Europe and Asia, combining their commercial faculties under 
the British flag, might deliver Africa from the Slave Trade, and 
America from its pestilent fruits. The foulest reproach of 
commerce might be wiped away by the beneficent hand of 
commerce herself; and the mistress of the seas might obtain a 
new title to be hailed as the benefactress of mankind, in every 
region of the globe. 

“ Nor would these vast and brilliant attainments be counter¬ 
poised by any of those heavy burthens in time of peace, or 
enormous consumptions of our military means and finances in 

c 


18 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


time of war, to which we are subjected for the security of our 
Slave-peopled colonies. What these are, and have long- berti, 
I cannot with any certainty state. It is high time that the 
people of England should be enabled, by parliamentary investi¬ 
gation, fairly to ascertain them. Meantime I will hazard an 
estimate, that our sugar colonies have cost us during the last 
thirty years, at least an hundred and fifty millions of national 
debt, and fifty thousand lives. 

“ In future, they are likely to be still more costly ; and unless 
that cruel and baneful institution which forms their interior 
debility and danger shall be speedily and effectually reformed, 
F deem it highly probable that the present generation, which 
has seen our country in the zenith of its power and glory, may 
witness also its rapid decline, if not also the total ruin of its 
greatness, as the just and natural reward of our oppression. 

“ I can here but briefly notice the sources of this apprehen¬ 
sion. They are to be found in the new political positions of 
almost every region in North and South America, and of every 
European power that has colonies in either; in the expulsion 
of France from her settlements in the East, and her colonies in 
the West; in the new political state of Hayti, and the dubious 
future relations of Cuba; in the possessions which we have 
imprudently and perniciously acquired on the South-American 
continent; and, above all, in the gigantic growth of the United 
States, in territory and maritime power. 

“ Let any statesman capable of enlarged views contemplate, 
under such circumstances, the event of our being soon engaged 
in new hostilities for the defence of our West-Indian colonies. 
Let him calculate what the aggravation of the arduous service 
would be, if North America were hostile, and the ports of 
Hayti open to her cruisers, or those of our other maritime 
enemies; as from the bad and offensive return which West- 
Indian inlluence has led us to make to the amity of its Govern¬ 
ment, we have every reason to expect. Let him next turn his 
eyes to our enormous wide extended possessions in the East ; 
which every maritime state beholds with an envy undisguised, 
and where France will no longer have to divert her means of 
annoyance for purposes of defensive war. Let the necessary 
defence of our new African settlements, and of the Mauritius, 
also be taken into the account. In the latter, a large stationary 
force would be necessary to maintain its allegiance to its new, 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 19 

in a war with its former, sovereign; to native feelings would 
be added discontent with the abolition of the Slave Trade, 
and with that real grievance, the heavy tax on their produce 
imposed, with an unfair partiality, for the benefit of our West- 
Indian colonies. 

“ With such new belligerent prospects, whatBritish statesman 
can contemplate without alarm the usual consumption of our 
military and maritime means in West-Indian campaigns. Yet 
our defensive operations there must be now of an extent far 
exceeding all former precedents. We have now continental, 
as well as insular, possessions to defend ; and they are scat¬ 
tered all the way from the mouths of the Oroonoko, to the 
Mexican Gulph. Spain, on the other hand, will probably in 
the western world have nothing to lose, and France nothing to 
defend, but two nearly contiguous islands, naturally strong, and 
now rendered impregnable by their certain fidelity to a flag 
which still protects their Slave Trade. We never had a field of 
war so barren to us of gain or glory as the Charibean seas must 
hereafter prove; nor one in which we should present to our old 
enemies so many vulnerable points. But the difficulty, and the 
overwhelming expense of defending our sugar colonies, may be 
still further aggravated, if we should, unfortunately, have among 
our enemies the United States of America; extending, as they 
now do, their southern wing all the way to the Mexican Gulph, 
and possessed of a brave and active marine. 

“ When confined in the West Indies to defensive operations, 
the consumption of our naval and military means there, would 
be an uncompensated evil. No other diversion of them could 
so widely prejudice our operations in the east, the wrestling 
place where we shall probably have to put forth all our energies 
in future wars. 

“ There is only one effectual preparative against these for¬ 
midable difficulties, with which we may soon and fatally have 
to conflict. Let the Black population be conciliated, and its 
fidelity secured ; let the Negroes be raised to a condition in 
which they can safely be trusted with arms; and then our sugar 
colonies might be safely left to their interior means of defence. 

“ But this the Assemblies will not concede; and yet they 
threaten us, risum teneatis! they threaten us with their inde¬ 
pendence ! !! 

“ And what are we to lose by it ? A capital , they tell us, 


20 WKST-1NDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 

which they affect to value at I know not how many scores, or 
hundreds of millions. The Poyais stockholders might as well 
deprecate on that score the loss of Sir Gregor Macgregor s 
principality. What is the worth of that capital which never 
produced, or can produce, on an average, any thing but loss ! 
True, there are prizes in the sugar-planting lottery, and high 
ones; but I have proved, from their own statements *, and will 
demonstrate more fully, if necessary, in the second part ot this 
work, that loss and ruin are, aud always have been, the lot of a 
vast majority of the adventurers. I undertake to shew, upon 
premises established by the concurrent evidence of the most 
eminent planters and merchants, and by Reports of Committees 
of the House of Commons, that upon an average of the returns 
from capital embarked in sugar-planting in our sugar islauds, 
in long periods, comprising the times of their greatest prospe¬ 
rity, there would be heavyjoss, instead of gain ; without allow¬ 
ing any thing even for the subsistence of the absent proprietors. 
But as these returns are most unequally divided, in proportion 
to the capital employed, and very enormously in their amount 
at different periods, and as it is not the characteristic of the 
owners of such property, any more than of other adventurers 
in hazardous speculations, to limit their expenditure by their 
average incomes, the loss does not fall on themselves alone. 
When a West-India planter fails, his merchants and mortgagees 
and creditors in this country are almost sure largely to suffer. 
When a West-India merchant fails (and how very common an 
occurrence that is, the commercial world need not be told), the 
manufacturers and others who are connected with him in this 
country deeply feel the effects of his ruin, and are often drawn 
down by his fall. On the whole, it may be safely affirmed, that 
in a general and collective view, not only is the capital employed 
in raising sugar by the labour of Slaves wholly unproductive of 
profit or iuterest, but no small part of the capital itself is fiually 
lost; and with consequences widely injurious to commercial 
credit in general. 

“We are threatened also with a loss of revenue. This will 
be alarming, when it is shewn that thirty-seven shillings a 
huudred weight is less than twenty-seven; or that foreign 
growers of sugar will not send it to the best markets; and also 


# ** See pp. 92—95, and Appendix No. IV." 


WEST-INDiAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 21 

that a hundred millions of British subjects in the East, with an 
immeasurable extent of fertile soil fit for the sugar-cane, cannot 
supply our consumption. The preposterous position that the 
import duties on sugar are paid by the colonial grower, and not 
by the British consumer, is unworthy of a serious answer. Its 
utter falsehood has been often demonstrated, even before the 
late repeal of our navigation laws, for the accommodation of 
our planters; yet its truth is still assumed with as much confi¬ 
dence by every colonial writer, as if the idle paradox were liable 
to no dispute; and they gravely attempt to alarm ns in conse¬ 
quence with a loss of above six millions per annum ! If they are 
right, the import duties on port wine are paid by Portugal, and 
those on French brandy by France. We have only to import 
goods enough, and tax them high enough, in order to pay off 
our national debt out of the purses of the foreigners we buy 
from. If we could obtain the commodity from themselves 
alone, and they could sell to us only, or were not allowed to 
draw back the duties on re-exportation, the doctrine would still 
be extravagant; but while we exclude all other competitors 
from our markets, and allow them to feed or starve our consump¬ 
tion at their pleasure, no words can do justice to its absurdity. 

“ These alarmists forget, that there is no longer any bond but 
their own interest, for their resort to the British markets. They 
are now enabled to send their sugars where they please; and 
they will withhold them from us, of course, if they can get a 
better price elsewhere. But America, it seems, and other 
foreign countries, do not choose to accept from them, on the 
same terms, this large and gratuitous revenue. 

“ There is an end of the old pretence of our having a mono¬ 
poly, in return for the charge of protection. The monopoly now 
is all on one side; and it binds the protectors, not the pro¬ 
tected. The loss of our North-American Colonies, however, 
and its effects, should have much sooner exploded the error, 
that the dominion of a country is necessary to ensure its com¬ 
mercial preference ; and proved, that, if our West-India islands 
were independent to-morrow, we should not have an ounce less 
of their sugars, except because we bought them cheaper 
elsewhere. 

“ Lastly, we are menaced with a loss of export trade and 
freight for our shipping . The very reverse would he the 
effect of the separation supposed. Our gains in both those 


WEST INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 


important interests would be extremely great. There is no 
country on earth where sugar is raised, that would not take a 
much larger portion of our exports in exchange for that com¬ 
modity than these Slave-peopled islands, where the labouring 
class consume scarcely any article we supply, except some 
coarse clothing, and that in a most scanty degree; aud where 
the owners of the sugar, for the most part, do not reside. I 
should be astonished, if any representations from that quarter 
could still surprise me, at finding some of the indefatigable pens 
now employed in the service of the planters bold enough to 
speak even of losses to our English landholders. What benefit 
do these derive from the sugar colonies, to the onerous support 
of which they so largely contribute? Is it relief in any degree 
from the burthen of the parochial poor? Almost every other of 
our trans-marine possessions takes oil’ some small portion of our 
redundant population, for purposes of agriculture or domestic 
service; hut not one labouring hand finds such employment by 
emigration to the West Indies. Is it relief to our unfortunate 
farmers, and their still more unfortunate landlords, by exports 
of Hour or grain ? The consumption of such articles in islands 
chiefly dependent for the food of the Slaves, and of all classes 
on imported provisions, certainly ought to afford such a benefit, 
and formerly, in some measure, did so; but now they are sup¬ 
plied almost exclusively from the United States. Even our 
North-American Colonies must henceforth be excluded from a 
participation in this trade; and will find no vent for their pro¬ 
duce but in our own overloaded markets. They are mocked, 
indeed, with a small protecting duty on those articles, when the 
growth of the United States ; but as its produce in every island 
is to go into the insular treasury, and will be a substitute for 
inferior taxes, it will be no drawback on the economy of pre¬ 
ferring foreign flour and grain, to those of British North-Ame- 
rica and England. 

“ They produce to us large returns of manufactures cleared 
out for their ports; but these, like the rest of their statements 
and evidence, are, for the most part, fallacious. If, from the 
amount of such exports, the very large proportion of them, for 
which our West-India ports are mere entrepots for the supply 
of South America, (a circuity that we no longer are driven to), 
were deducted, the remainder would be of small account. It 
would bear, at least, a very minute proportion to the sugar we 


WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS REFUTED. 23 

take in return; whereas, in Cuba, in Brazil, in Hayti, and, 
above all, in Hindostan, we might pay with our manufactures 
for almost every hogshead of sugar or bag of coffee we bought. 

“ The same considerations apply to our maritime interests. 
There would be a large increase of outward and no diminution, 
at least, of homeward freights. Let these threateners prove to 
us, if they can, that a ton of sugar brought from Brazil or India, 
will pay a less freight than if it came from Jamaica. 

“ What, then, should we lose by the independency of our 
sugar colonies, or their transfer to a,foreign power? I answer, 
if Parliament is not at length prepared to mitigate and pro¬ 
gressively abolish Slavery, nothing at all. The saving of blood 
and treasure in their defence, and of capital in their cultivation, 
would be pure unbalanced gain. But on the opposite suppo¬ 
sition, the loss would be great indeed; a loss so lamentable, 
that to avoid it we ought to submit to all the evils, and all the 
privations, that these ruinous possessions subject us to. We 
should lose the precious opportunity of redeeming the national 
conscience, and the national honour, by making some restitution; 
a tardy and imperfect one indeed, but all the restitution in our 
power, to seven hundred thousand hapless human beings whom 
we have deeply wronged, the victims of the iniquitous Slave 
Trade. Were our sugar colonies to be separated from the 
British dominion, we could not alleviate, we could not pro¬ 
gressively terminate, the cruel bondage in which, through our 
crimes, they have been placed. 

“ For their sakes, therefore, we are bound still to sustain 
the heavy burthens I have noticed, to encounter the serious 
dangers I have anticipated, to renounce the splendid advan¬ 
tages I have described. Justice, sacred justice, is not to be 
put in the scales against national interest, or even national 
security. The Buler of the destinies of nations might frustrate 
the selfish estimate, and punish the base desertion of acknow¬ 
ledged duties, by evils worse even than those which deliverance 
from these colonies would avert. 

“ I am prepared, therefore, to say, that whatever sacrifice the 
relief of the oppressed Slaves may involve, it is the price of a 
reparation we are bound to make to them. Let Parliament 
enter on the work, and their advocates will object to none of the 
necessary means. I do not except indemnity to their masters, 
as far as it is justly due. Nay, we might, perhaps, justifiably 


24 WEST-INDIAN PRETENSIONS RKFUTBD. 

go further, and make sacrifices, such as l do not think it neces¬ 
sary particularly here to explain. It might be allowable to relieve 
the sugar planters at the expense of the people of this country, 
by making their monopoly of our markets more pertect and more 
profitable to them for a limited period than it has hitherto been, 
through fiscal regulations, made subservient to the all important 
object of correcting their interior system, by insuring a willing 
conformity to Acts of Parliament to be made for that purpose. 

“ But if, which may Heaven avert, this sacred duty of the 
British Legislature is to be abandoned ; or, what is the same 
thing, still committed to the Assemblies; then the measure 
next in wisdom, and next in justice too, is to take the colonists 
at their word ; and to renounce that dominion over them, the 
continuance of which will only involve us in deeper guilt, and 
perhups in future ruin. 

«* I say, it is next in justice; because, when separated from 
the government of a country which yields them no protection, 
the condition of the Slaves will be less hopeless than at present. 
If the colonies are to be independent, regard for their own 
safety may oblige them to conciliate that large mass of their 
population which they can now safely oppress. It, on the other 
hand, they shall pass to the dominion of another pow’er, it will 
probably be one that will not abandon them wholly to the legis¬ 
lation of assemblies, formed and elected by their masters. We 
hitherto stand alone in that weak and reproachful maxim of 
colonial policy. Neither Spam, nor Portugal, nor France, nor 
Holland, nor Denmark, has omitted to make laws in Europe for 
the protection of the Slaves in their West-Indian settlements, 
though the two former only have made them with effect: nor 
would the United States, if the sugar colonies should devolve 
to them, leave Slavery there unmitigated, or unlimited in point 
of duration. A fundamental principle of their Union alone has 
prevented the general Congress from mitigating or abolishing 
the odious institution of the southern States. At all events we 
should escape, by the supposed separation, the dreadful neces¬ 
sity of shedding the blood of these helpless victims of our power 
wheu intolerable oppression goads them again iuto resistance.” 


Printed by Ellerlon and IfrndmoD, 
Gough Square, Loudon. 










